ce in your faith, and wrap it carefully
in the cotton of isolation, lest it take cold from any draught of
the world; while others are vexed with you, and proclaim that you
are people who esteem yourselves too holy to come into contact
with publicans, etc. If every one should think so who believes he
has found truth--and many serious, upright, humble seekers do believe
they find it elsewhere, or in another form--what a Pennsylvania
solitary-confinement prison would God's beautiful earth become,
divided up into thousands and thousands of exclusive coteries by
insuperable partitions! Compare, also, Rom. xiv. 22 and xv. 2; also,
particularly, I Cor. iv. 5; viii. 2; ix. 20; also xii. 4 and the
following; further, xiii. 2; all in the First Ep. to the Cor., which
seems to me to apply to the subject. We talked, during that walk, or
another one, a great deal about "the sanctity of doing good works." I
will not inundate you with Scripture passages in this connection, but
only tell you how splendid I find the Epistle of James. (Matt. xxv. 34
and following; Rom. ii. 6; II Cor. v. 10; Rom. ii. 13; I Epistle of
John iii. 7, and countless others.) It is, indeed, unprofitable to
base arguments upon separate passages of Scripture apart from their
connection; but there are many who are honestly striving, and who
attach more importance to passages like James ii. 14 than to Mark xvi.
16, and for the latter passage offer expositions, holding them to be
correct, which do not literally agree with yours. To what
interpretation does the word "faith" not lend itself, both when taken
alone and in connection with that which the Scriptures command us "to
believe," in every single instance where they employ the word! Against
my will, I fall into spiritual discussion and controversies. Among
Catholics the Bible is read not at all, or with great precaution, by
the laity; it is expounded only by the priests, who have concerned
themselves all their lives with the study of the original sources. In
the end, all depends upon the interpretation. Concert in Buetow amuses
me: the idea of Buetow is, to my mind, the opposite of all music.

I have been quite garrulous, have I not? Now I must disturb some
document-dust, and sharpen my pen afresh to the police-official style,
for the president of the provincial court and the government. Could I
but enclose myself herewith, or go along in a salmon-basket as
mail-matter! Till we meet again, _dearest black one_.[13]